"What power permits them to quit their abiding places within the crusty bosom of mother earth, and visiting again the haunts of mortal man, pour forth their immortal utterances? My rummaging mind takes on a newer consciousness. Reverie lifts her leaden hand from off my brow, my eyes open and gaze upon a vast multitude of people--men, women and children. Men are standing on the seats and hurling their hats in the air; women are weeping in joy and waving handkerchiefs, all, all shout in clamorous accord. Their eyes are riveted upon the stage, and upon a man who is gracefully bowing acknowledgement to the thunders of applause. I am near him, I gaze in his face. 'Tis the face of Eugene V. Debs." To my mind the above beautiful comparisons are not overdrawn. In 1874 he was admitted to the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, and in 1877 his brother members of the local lodge, recognizing his superior ability, sent him to the Indianapolis convention to represent them. The next year he was a delegate to the Buffalo convention. Here he was chosen associate editor of the Locomotive Firemen's Magazine, and three years later he was elected editor, and assumed full control. In September, 1880, he was elected Grand Secretary and Treasurer in Chicago, and to prove the confidence placed in him by this organization, he was unanimously elected to that office for thirteen consecutive years without a dissenting vote, and at the last convention, held in San Francisco, he was again nominated after making a speech, courteously but firmly declining, and was finally forced to refuse the nomination before his declinature would be accepted. When Mr. Debs assumed control of this office, the Brotherhood was on the verge of disruption. From this condition he, by his untiring devotion and wonderful executive abilities, elevated the Brotherhood to one of the most powerful organizations of the age, and thus it was through the instrumentality of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen he was brought before the laboring people. Some few years ago he saw that class organization would not be successful, owing to the petty jealousy existing between the different orders, and that in every instance where one organization had a grievance with a railroad corporation, the management would use one or all the others to crush the one having the grievance. In order to remedy this, he promulgated a plan of federation whereby all the different organizations, engineers, firemen, conductors, trainmen and switchmen would stand as a unit in case of a grievance. This federation was accomplished, but owing to the treachery of some of the chiefs, proved unsatisfactory and was finally dissolved.